Beyond the Mat: Ahimsa—the Foundation of Yoga

A few years ago, I was shopping at Jewel when I heard someone calling my name; it was a former Ashtanga vinyasa yoga student of mine, who was eager to catch up.

He told me he was now practicing hot yoga. “Why?” I asked.

“Because I blew out my knees doing Ashtanga,” he replied.

“It didn’t happen in my class,” I said. Since I began teaching yoga in 1998, I’ve always encouraged students to exercise restraint, be patient with their bodies, and never force the poses, especially the extreme knee bends.

No, he said, it didn’t happen in my class. “It was my own ego,” he admitted, with a rueful smile. “I kept forcing myself into padmasana [lotus pose], even though it hurt.”

In other words, he violated the first rule of yoga, which is ahimsa, or the nonharming of any living being in word, thought, or deed.

Like my student, many of us come to yoga through the poses, or asanas, which fall under the third limb of Ashtanga, or The Eight Limbs of Yoga. The limbs comprise a series of steps, or disciplines, that are outlined in the Yoga Sutras and are aimed at purifying the body and mind, which ultimately leads to enlightenment.

Traditionally, the first and second limbs—the yamas (restraints or virtues) and niyamas (observances)—were practiced before the aspirant would be given an opportunity to perform the postures. And the first yama is ahimsa (the others are truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and nongreed).

“Ethical behavior is necessary for a yogi and it’s derived from yama,” my guru, Sri Dharma Mittra, has explained. “Without the ethical rules [of yoga], you’re just wasting your time. It’s like digging your own grave, and it causes lots of pain and delusion and disappointment.”

Ahimsa has its roots in compassion and means not causing pain to oneself or others. Like the other yamas, it is to be practiced in speech, thought, and action, regardless of time, place, or circumstances.

Sri Dharma says that ahimsa is a subtler version of the Bible’s sixth commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill. “Thou shall not kill the comfort of others,” he often says.

Swami Sivananda Radha, author of Time to Be Holy: Reflecting on Daily Life, said, “Of course, there is a very fine line between refraining from harming others and the natural tendency towards self-protection, which can serve as an excuse for selfish actions that would indeed harm the other.”

The Yoga Sutras states that no harm comes to one who is established in ahimsa.

On a practical level, ahimsa results in a peaceful mind that is conducive to meditation.

Ahimsa in diet

Ahimsa means practicing nonviolence and compassion towards all living things, including people, animals, and insects, regardless of your relationship to them. Yogis believe that the same spark of consciousness, or divinity, resides inside each and every living being, and that when you harm others you are actually harming yourself, which in turn disturbs your inner peace.

Many yogis adopt a vegetarian diet out of a sense of compassion. The Buddha said, “All beings love life, all beings love happiness. Taking yourself for comparison, you should neither harm or kill, nor cause to harm or kill another being.”

Sri Dharma Mittra says that even if we don’t kill the animal ourselves, we are still somehow participating in the violence. “Your compassion should be great enough, big enough, so that you understand eating meat involves pain and suffering. The animals were made to be loved, not to be eaten! All beings are like us, they love life, they want to have a family and children and tremble with fear of violence.”

“Esoterically, the fear felt by the animal as it waits to be slaughtered and the hatred it feels for the human who slaughters it change the composition of its flesh and increase fear and anger in whoever eats it,” writes yoga and ayurveda expert Dr. Robert E. Svoboda in Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution. “The more the violence involved in the collection of our food, the greater the violence in our lives…. Not everyone can avoid meat, but when you can, you should.” (To learn more, read my March/April 2015 column, “Five Reasons to Eat Less Meat”: yogachicago.com/2015/03/five-reasons-to-eat-less-meat/.)

That said, diet is a personal choice, and each person must do what feels right for them. Fortunately, yoga is not about blind faith. Instead, it invites us to try these things for ourselves and find out firsthand if they work.

Ahimsa in yoga practice

We can practice ahimsa on the mat by following alignment cues, which allow us to practice safely.

We must also learn to listen to the body. That means learning to distinguish between pain (which is sharp and takes the breath away) and discomfort (which is dull and does not affect our breathing). I find that when students are breathing heavily or erratically, they are usually pushing too hard. I also encourage them to ease off poses if there is discomfort in the shoulder or knee or at the site of a previous injury.

After taking care of ourselves physically, we practice verbal ahimsa by not berating ourselves under our breath in class, and not grimacing at ourselves. We practice ahimsa in thought by not comparing ourselves to others and ignoring our inner critic.

When we take our practice off the mat, we practice ahimsa with our loved ones; we then extend it to acquaintances and finally to strangers and even enemies.

In yoga, we start with the gross and work towards the subtle. For example, if someone takes our parking space, we don’t get out of the car and try to punish them. We practice verbal ahimsa by not giving them the finger or swearing at them. Finally, we practice ahimsa in thought by not berating them mentally.

Keep in mind that if you fail—and we all do—you should not beat yourself up (which is a form of self-harming). Instead, yogis apologize and start over.

As Jack Kornfield wrote in Buddha’s Little Instruction Book, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

………………………….

Kali Om, E-RYT 500, is author of the new book, Beyond the Mat: Don’t Just Do Yoga – Live It, available on Amazon, Kindle, and elsewhere. She’ll lead a winter yoga vacation February 9–16, 2019, in sunny Belize; a spring renewal retreat April 27–28 at the beautiful Port for Prayer in Frankfort, Illinois; and a Dealing with Anger workshop on November 3 and a Holiday Chakra Balancing workshop on December 15, both at the Chicago School of Yoga. She has been teaching yoga since 1998 and is a disciple of Sri Dharma Mittra and the senior teacher of Dharma yoga in Chicago. She studied five times in India with the late Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga master Pattabhi Jois. Kali teaches Dharma yoga in Lakeview on Sundays and at East Bank Club, Chicago Athletic Clubs, and DePaul University’s Ray Meyer Center. In addition, she leads workshops and teaches workplace and private yoga in person and via FaceTime and Skype. Kali is further certified in Yoga Therapeutics, Psychic Development, Yoga Nidra, Seniors Yoga, Prenatal Yoga, Gentle/Restorative Yoga, Rocket Yoga, and Hormone Yoga Therapy for Menopause and has a master’s degree in journalism. For more information, visit yogikaliom.com, or contact Kali at 773.315.5489 or kali@yogikaliom.com.